POLL: What Amigas do you game on?

[Photon]

We began talking in another thread about NTSC ports and vice versa back in the day. Or at least I started thinking and got curious. How many American Amiga Fans retrogame, and what do we game on NOW?

Answers could help convince a dev to tune/port a game to the faster framerate!

(If you do more than one of the above, please vote for the one you do most, or would like to do most. And all answers except the PAL one for European etc gamers could help give an idea for devs regarding NTSC. I.e. if you emulate mostly, put that and since most PC and phone screens do 60Hz, not 50, this is informative.)

[desiv]

On my Amiga 1000, as it is NTSC only, I only play NTSC games on it. ;-)
On my A1200, I use an RGB monitor. It boots in 60hz, and I use a PAL WB.
I use WHDLOAD to run almost everything there in PAL, unless it needs NTSC.
(Which reminds me of a complaint about WHDLOAD. Unless it has changed, I can set a default PAL for all games, but then I can't set specific games for NTSC or it complains because I have it set twice. So I have to set each game manually.)
Generally that works, EXCEPT...
There are a few non-WHDLOAD games that don't automatically pop into PAL mode. (I think Tanks Fury??? One of the SQRXZ games?)
So for those, I need to reboot my Amiga and go into early boot to force PAL.
Not a huge hassle, but something I wish wasn't necessary...
(Yes, I realize I could bend out a pin on Alice to force PAL all the time, but I am hesitant to do so..)

desiv

[DamienD]

I voted for "I game on emulators, so I can do both."

...but even in emulation I never use NTSC as that's not how I remember things in terms of display, timings, being sped up.

Back in the day though it was PAL; being from Australia.

[Photon]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I voted for "I game on emulators, so I can do both."

...but even in emulation I never use NTSC as that's not how I remember things in terms of display, timings, being sped up.

Back in the day though it was PAL; being from Australia.

That's excellent, and even with emulators it's still up to which games got ports - but some PAL-only games (especially non-action-intense games) could play smoothly at 60 FPS in WHDLoad with an accelerator. Others might stutter regardless of acceleration.

Some games may already require acceleration, for example, and then if the devs want to support Amigas/emulators @ 60 Hz, they could port or add a mode to make it smoother on modern or NTSC screens. (But: if they target A500, it will be a very hard ask to suddenly make their already optimized game suddenly run 17% faster. )

And what you refer to is the tuning of the gameplay. In action games, the difficulty is affected by the framerate, unless there's separate tuning of the gameplay as well (for 'demanding type action games).

[kgc210]

What about an option for RTG? Also if you can software force 60hz on a PAL system (I don't know if you can or not) an option for I have a Tri-Sync broadcast monitor so can play anything odd you through at it?

[Photon]

Originally Posted by kgc210

What about an option for RTG? Also if you can software force 60hz on a PAL system (I don't know if you can or not) an option for I have a Tri-Sync broadcast monitor so can play anything odd you through at it?

This is why I put Other. There are quite a few combos, f.ex. I just found out on my same poll on Facebook that someone runs a PAL Amiga in an NTSC country, with Indivision 60Hz display.

But this poll is about the classic "trouble with NTSC and PAL games" - compare to console games, "regions", etc. When you've bought an RTG card, you've sort of made yourself free from this region business. The game doesn't need adaption (other than to fix any bugs with a specific gfx card, just like on PC etc., i.e. not region).

So I guess you could either put Other if you game mostly on RTG, but if you have a dual display setup to run old and new games made for NTSC/PAL and game mostly on the other display, you should select region.

[kgc210]

I put other as the option as I can play anything some one decides to make

[TjLaZer]

Originally Posted by desiv

On my Amiga 1000, as it is NTSC only, I only play NTSC games on it. ;-)

There are a few non-WHDLOAD games that don't automatically pop into PAL mode. (I think Tanks Fury??? One of the SQRXZ games?)
So for those, I need to reboot my Amiga and go into early boot to force PAL.
Not a huge hassle, but something I wish wasn't necessary...
(Yes, I realize I could bend out a pin on Alice to force PAL all the time, but I am hesitant to do so..)

desiv

You need some tools called PAL, BootPAL or AmigatoPAL. You run these right before you run that program and it opens up in PAL mode.

[desiv]

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

You need some tools called PAL, BootPAL or AmigatoPAL. You run these right before you run that program and it opens up in PAL mode.

Thanx, I was aware of BootPAL which I thought would just reboot the Amiga into PAL mode. That could work, but it's another step.


The AmigatoPAL looks promising... (Just looked it up on Aminet)
I'll test it out.


Thanx!


desiv

[Daedalus]

Yeah, I'd also put down RTG, and when I was using a CRT I would run applications and Workbench in an NTSC mode to eliminate the flicker. But whenever I play a game on native screenmodes, it's PAL/50.

[demoniac]

Now: I game on emulators, so I can do both.

Used to: I play NTSC games on my NTSC Amiga 500 and the PAL ones that work. Most of my collection is NTSC patched.

Occasionally: My outlet is 60Hz, but I have A1200 to play all the PAL games.

[idrougge]

You're lacking the option to play NTSC games on a PAL Amiga. I often set the NTSC flag in WHDLoad on American games, or even European games that run in 320x200.

[Photon]

I can share some results from Facebook:

PAL: 125
NTSC: 20
EMU: 16
Converter: 3
Other:2

It's interesting that there are so few NTSC gamers on EAB! (1:26 compared to 1:6 on Facebook)

Hm time to invite them here perhaps?

[desiv]

Originally Posted by Photon

It's interesting that there are so few NTSC gamers on EAB! (1:26 compared to 1:6 on Facebook)

Well, it is "English" Amiga Board....


desiv

[Photon]

Originally Posted by desiv

Well, it is "English" Amiga Board....

Hehe. I would say nationality-wise it's a Global Amiga Board, and language-wise, the board is 100% English. So now I'm curious to see a pie chart But then I'd need another poll, gah... I think I can't be "arsed", as the expression goes (in some strange part of the world!!)

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by desiv

Well, it is "English" Amiga Board....

desiv

...not again

"English" as in the primary language used on the forum, not physical location i.e. only members from the UK.

There are people from all over the world; including me i.e. Australia...

[desiv]

Originally Posted by DamienD

"English" as in the primary language used on the forum, not physical location i.e. only members from the UK..

Have you heard us in the US speak English? Have you seen us try to use English to comment and post?
I think you are being generous to us there..

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by desiv

Have you heard us in the US speak English?

Yes, a load of z's replacing s's for some strange reason etc...

...and weird pronunciations of words like aluminium and route

[Mikerochip]

How come there's an option to play NTSC and NTSC and PAL, but for PAL it's just PAL. No PAL + NTSC.

[DamienD]

I can fix that if necessary?